There is a new trending style attack on the rise. The attacks have been named, “Phishing as a Service” or PHaaS. This new type of phishing campaign is where devoted threat actors are now engaged in operational phishing campaigns. According to researchers from Imperva, PHaaS is a low cost and efficient way of conducting newly launched phishing campaigns. The phishing campaigns are launched once notorious threat actors identify and target a vulnerable web server. The web server is then immediately hijacked in order for the hackers to make quick work of providing a steady and operational base for a phishing email distribution system. The operational capability of the newly acquired web server then allows for the malicious threat actors to have tremendous effectiveness and probability.

The PHaaS phishing operations is conducted in the similar fashion, how ransomware operators who are contracted out for malware dropper services. It is now the new way of conducting sustained phishing campaigns where it is simply just the consideration of operating costs and profitability. PHaaS campaigns cost only a fourth of the operational cost of the traditional phishing campaign. However, the new PHaaS makes twice the profit for the malicious actors who engage in the activity. Unfortunately, because of its profit increase and low cost there will definitely be an increase in using the PHaaS method in future and on-going continued phishing attacks.

Therefore, it is now “No longer feasible for computer system enterprises to use a client side approach towards the fight of phishing attempts because people and personnel still continue to click on unknown malicious links in distributed emails.” Now, web application security software has to be immediately deployed and implemented across all domains to mitigate PHaaS phishing campaigns in the future.


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